Analects

Filter by type: All · Articles · Audio · Marginalia

Filter by anthology: All · Betterment · Gratification · Connection · Somatic Architecture · Spiritual Architecture · Thought Architecture · Wealth Architecture · Digital Architecture · Collective Architecture

Narrative Culture

[article] Stupid Questions — 1 Jan 2026
Nature is just nurture over time, and nurture is far more obviously in charge; nothing changes if free will isn’t real; and the same is true of consciousness. They’re just complicated debates with no real outcomes.
[article] AI Hallucination is just Man-Guessing — 1 Nov 2025
Human reasoning isn’t flawed, it’s a social tool we use in the wrong places. It’s about sharing and evaluating intuitive claims, not generating rational ones. AI is fundamentally this but crippled: without the grounded intuitions and social friction that makes it work.
[article] Beyond System 1 and System 2 — 13 Jun 2025
System 1 vs System 2 is a useful shorthand, but our minds aren’t two-speed engines—they’re multi-process coalitions of specialised agents working in parallel and in series.
[article] Positive Intelligence pt.III — 30 May 2025
This might be the most comprehensive example of the neuroscience confidence game I’ve ever written about. That and a heavy dose of self-indulgence. Neuroscientific self-help, not so much.
[article] Positive Intelligence pt.II — 23 May 2025
Chamine’s ‘Positivity Quotient’ is based on nothing beyond ‘being happier is better than being sad’, and unless they appeal to you, there’s no reason to pick his ‘ten saboteurs’ over any of the other inner-critics out there.
[article] Positive Intelligence pt.I — 16 May 2025
It says it’s based on the latest research, but actually it’s based on a 40 year old version of the concept of an ‘inner critic’, and a pack of very well worded porky-pies.
[article] Evolution is overrated — 18 Apr 2025
Without time-travel, evolutionary narratives can only identify theories that don’t make sense (like death drives). It can’t tell you what theories do make sense, because you can make many to explain the same thing. All they do is let you see what people wish the world was like.
[article] Aesthetics are facts too — 21 Feb 2025
Cultural and aesthetic ‘facts’ are as real as any ‘objective’ truths. They’re just centred on different kinds of meaning. Trivialising them because they ‘go against’ the evidence is failing to recognise what evidence they care about.
[article] Great Spirits of History — 6 Sep 2024
The ‘Great Man’ theory of history has the history of ideas moved forward by individuals. But by thinking of these as ‘Great Ideas’, or better ‘spirits’ of ideas, we’re encouraged to examine their motivations, which is surprisingly effective.
[article] Ideologies stack — 15 Jun 2024
Fringe theories always seem to cluster together. It seems weird, but mainstream theories also do, we just don’t often examine them. Examining why different theory stacks arise reveals much about our biases, ideologies, and the influence of community-based knowledge.
[article] The Trouble With Objectivity — 21 Dec 2023
The obsession over objectivity is a confusion of two things. There’s rationality, the desire to be less biased. Then there’s truth which is going to be necessarily biased toward whatever aspect of the world we’re trying to understand. In both cases objectivity is irrelevant.
[article] Leadership consulting is usually more 'feel good' than 'do good' — 17 Aug 2023
Leadership consulting proposes to fix leaders, but because we can confuse ‘making leaders feel good’ with ‘making leaders better’ it usually fails. It doesn’t have to though: just take the extra step from ‘collective vision’ to ‘collective norms’.
[article] The value of ritual — 17 Mar 2023
Rituals are often dismissed, but they’re just procedures with a purpose. We all engage in ritualistic behavior—many habits and routines meet this criteria. Redefining them through the uncomfortable lens of ritual prompts us to question our own practices and beliefs.
[article] Abstractions as Gods — 28 Dec 2022
We can use abstractions to get a handle on complex features of the world. By personalising centres of purpose in the world, we can better connect them to ideologies. This permits the crafting of ever more graceful solutions to our complex world.
[article] Obscuring Banalities — 16 Dec 2022
We often use complicated-sounding words to dress up simple ideas about the human experience. But this isn’t just self-indulgence. It’s also a desire to conform to the right ‘ways’ of knowing as well as a desire for something to point at—an enemy, so to speak.